Wang Hsi-tien, a deputy secretary-general of the NSB, said during an interpellation session at the Legislative Yuan that there are roughly 5,000 Chinese citizens who have been living a clandestine existence in Taiwan since entering the country illegally.

Wang said the figure of “5,000” was arrived at based on cumulative calculations over the past several years, stressing that these illegal immigrants are not spies.

The NSB official made the remarks in response to a question raised by opposition Kuomintang Legislator Lin Yu-fang about whether former Deputy Defense Minister Lin Chong-pin’s recent claim that there are more than 5,000 Chinese spies operating in Taiwan is true.

Lin Chong-pin was quoted in the latest edition of the U.S. weekly “Defense News” as saying that he believes more than 5,000 mainland Chinese spies are operating in Taiwan.

Lin Chong-pin was also quoted as saying in the weekly report that he himself had stumbled upon one “Chinese spy” who was working as a cab driver in Taiwan in 1995. He said the driver spoke in perfect Beijing-accented Mandarin and admitted that he was from Beijing, that he had been briefed by the Taiwan Research Institute (affiliated with the People’s Republic of China’s National Security Ministry), that he had a master’s degree in hydraulic dynamics from Tsinghua University, and that he was in Taiwan to ‘serve the broad masses by comparing the strengths and weaknesses between the capitalist and socialist systems.”

When asked by Legislator Lin Yu-fang whether it was possible that Chinese authorities, unable to send spies to Taiwan from Xiamen, Fujian Province — which lies across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan, had decided to send spies from Beijing, Wang responded by saying that if he were a Chinese official in charge of espionage work, he would have sent spies from Fujian Province, rather than from Beijing.

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